The year 2026 feels a few forevers away, unless you're part of the small group of city officials and local sports execs trying to score another World Cup for Dallas.

In their case, that faraway tomorrow fast approaches. Look no further, in fact, than Monday morning, when a Dallas City Council committee is scheduled to get a sneak peek at plans to bring the World Cup back to Dallas for the first time since the sweltering summer of 1994.

FIFA will not announce who's getting the 2026 games until June — Morocco or the United Bid Committee consisting of the United States, Mexico and Canada. If the World Cup comes to North America, it will be another two, maybe three years before FIFA whittles down its list of host cities, which includes Dallas among 25 finalists.

Dallas among United Bid finalists for 2026 World Cup host cities

But with applications due to FIFA next month, officials in the city's Park and Recreation Department are ready to present the list of likely venues for base camps, training sites and games, among them the Cotton Bowl and Fair Park, MoneyGram Soccer Park in northwest Dallas, Toyota Stadium in Frisco and AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

At Monday's meeting of the council's Quality of Life, Arts & Culture Committee, they will tout the guesstimated $300 million-to-$500 million economic impact of such a get. They will talk about efforts to lure the Fan Fest, which could be held at Klyde Warren Park or, more likely, Fair Park and is expected to draw tens of thousands of spectators every day for weeks. And they will remind the council that in 1994, Fair Park hosted one of the two main International Broadcast Centres, as well as six games at the Cotton Bowl, that summer.

"It was so great, the excitement of the fans flying in from other host cities to come watch their teams play here at the Cotton Bowl," said Daniel Huerta, Fair Park's general manager. "And it wasn't just what happened inside the stadium, but outside: the drums, the chants, the banners, the signs. It was something we'd never seen before."

The Dallas Sports Commission is spearheading Dallas' bid, but it's hardly alone: Jimmy Smith, FC Dallas' chief operating and financial officer, said Friday that his club, the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas City Hall are all involved.

"We're going big," Smith said Friday. "We want to be the hub of the World Cup. We want the International Broadcast Centre so you will think of Dallas as the World Cup's home base. We want a semifinal here at AT&T Stadium. We want the opening game of the World Cup here, maybe even at the Cotton Bowl, and another three or four in between. Whether that happens or not, we'll see. But we're putting it out there to be the focus."

Dallas has longed for another World Cup ever since landing its first 23 years ago. Back then, the city was ill-prepared for soccer's grandest spectacle. There were almost no practice facilities, and Fair Park was, as ever, in a state of disrepair — the Cotton Bowl, especially, when city officials determined it needed upward of $9 million in work before it could host the matches. In the end, Dallas spent about $18 million to host the games, including the Netherlands-Brazil quarterfinals that July.

Cotton Bowl and AT&T Stadium named as potential 2026 FIFA World Cup venues

According to media accounts at the time, the city pocketed about $20 million in revenue once all the hotel room and sales-tax receipts were totaled up.

"The World Cup was a great experience and very positive for Dallas ... and that's pleasing," World Cup Dallas co-chair Lamar Hunt told this newspaper in the fall of '94. It was Hunt who brought soccer to North Texas 50 years ago when he formed the Dallas Tornado. And his sons Clark and Dan continue to run FC Dallas.

"They share with their father that same passion for growing soccer in North Texas," Smith said. "To them, bringing a World Cup to Dallas, there's nothing better to accelerate that passion."

Clark Hunt has tried this before, in fact: Seven years ago this week, about 200 people, among them he and then-Mayor Tom Leppert, congregated in the Dallas City Hall lobby to find out whether the U.S. had made the cut to host the 2022 World Cup. They found out FIFA had instead awarded the games to Qatar, which stunned Leppert and the Dallas World Cup Bid Committee and ultimately led to an ongoing federal corruption trial involving allegations of widespread corruption and bribery.

The call for Qatar was so disappointing that some of the folks involved in the last effort have tried to erase any and all memories of that wrenching December morning.

"I forgot we all thought we were going to get it and then didn't," Huerta said. "But this time around, I am betting on the United Bid Committee."